Is it true that Sulphur City Court Judge Charles Schrumpf is requiring first-time drug offenders to participate in a Christian drug treatment course offered by a local church?

Yes.

But Schrumpf said he gives offenders a choice.

“If anyone objects to the classes, I let them do other things. …,” he wrote Friday in an email. “I have had 2 people that I can think of in the 15 years that I have been doing this choose the latter and they must attend a class at McNeese.”

In a letter to Schrumpf dated July 20, Sam Grover, an attorney with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, objected to the use of the Life Choices program, which is run by Celebration Worship Center.

“We are informed that during this program, probationers are given a bible and are required to do homework that involves reading passages from scripture and the evangelical book ‘Made to Crave.’ We are told that the classes regularly open and close with Christian prayer. …” Grover wrote.

“We are further informed that when probationers have raised objections to participating in Life Choices due to the religious nature of the program, probation officers have told them to ‘take it up with the judge’ in an intimidating tone that led one probationer to believe that there would be retribution for doing so.”

In a response dated July 29, Schrumpf told Grover that he takes “the greatest care” to not violate offenders’ constitutional rights and uses as a guide a footnote from the Louisiana Supreme Court’s 1997 decision on then-Lake Charles City Court Judge Thomas Quirk’s practice of sentencing people to attend church.

From the footnote: “We believe … Judge Quirk’s sentencing practices would perhaps be less constitutionally questionable if he was to offer to defendants an alternative to church attendance such as attendance at a secular morality/ethics program or the performance of community service.”

The Judiciary Commission of Louisiana in 1995 filed charges against Quirk, saying he’d violated the U.S. Constitution and the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct. But the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1997 rejected the commission’s recommendations, saying Quirk had broken no rules.

In a separate concurring opinion, Associate Justice Jeffrey Victory said the majority opinion failed to “go far enough in giving guidance to sentencing judges.”

“Although this Court does not decide the issue of whether mandated church attendance violates the Establishment Clause of the first Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is clear that offering church attendance as a choice along with non-religious conditions of probation, such as community service, is constitutional. …,” Victory wrote.

“Indeed, during oral arguments Special Counsel for the Judiciary Commission of Louisiana acknowledged that if defendants were offered the choice of church attendance or performing other non-religious conditions of probation, such a solemnity service, there would be no constitutional or ethical violation.”

Schrumpf said Friday that he gives offenders similar choices — community service, a year of church attendance, or ethical and moral training.

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For more info: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/la-supreme-court/1011810.html.

The Informer answers questions from readers each Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. It is researched and written by Andrew Perzo, an American Press staff writer. To ask a question, call 494-4098 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com